Beschreibung

This great hardcover book with 456 full color pages with superb illustrations retraces the history of time, from origins to the present times.Critical to the organization of social life, for the agricultural and industrial production and trade, horological inventions were fed watch the progress and needs of their time as they have promoted the great discoveries.Approaches combining historical, scientific and human, the author examines the watch as a science but also as an art, dedicating this book to the genius of the man who, in his relentless quest for precision has continued to create instruments of a complexity and beauty even more amazing.He retraces their history, from the early approaches to the division of time modeled on the observation of the stars to the measuring devices the most advanced (mechanical clocks, electronic and atomic clocks).In doing so, it establishes the link between this history and the progressive mastery by humanity of a world a world on which a large sun - that of reason - no more go down.This richly illustrated panorama is supplemented of teaching materials that will make this book a reference work for specialists in the subject as a book of discovery aimed at novices.

Contents:

1. WATCH MAKING, DAUGHTER OF ASTRONOMY (from origins to the late 13th century)

The Neolithic Revolution

Writing and predict time

Medieval Europe: from sundial to mechanical clock

2. FROM CLOCK TO WATCH (from 14th to 16th century)

Public time

Private time

The birth of the mechanical watch

3. THE INVENTION OF PRECISION (from 16th to 18th century)

The Copernican revolution

The watchmaker in the service of world leaders

The technical and scientific progress

From fashion watch to precision watch

First aesthetic research

4. DURING THE INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION (1790 - 1918)

Industrial revolution, watch revolution

From workshop to the first factories

A functional instrument : chronograph

The era of travel: from local time to Universal Time

Technical innovations

The astronomical clock

The birth of the wristwatch

5. FROM THE FUNCTIONALITY OF THE MECHANICAL WRISTWATCH TO THE ACCURACY OF QUARTZ (1920 - 2000)